"So you decided to stir up a little rivalry?"

"It was always there," she said. "May I have my gun back?"

I handed it to her. She slipped it into her purse while I tapped out another cigarette and lit up.

"Will the helix continue to ascend?" I asked.

"Differently, perhaps, for a while. Maybe for a long time. The Patroness of Knowledge is not above learning."

"This Goddess that you are," I asked. "Are you different in degree or in kind?"

She laughed again. "Both, Dell. And I do love you."

"I love you, babe. But right now I'm wondering what would happen to the Universe if I plugged you, too."

"You couldn't," she said, simple as that. "They could die because they were the death principle. It's easy to deny death while you live. It's almost as easy to kill the metaphors for death. I am your metaphor for life. To deny me is to deny reality itself. To deny that a tree can grow from a seed or that a child can be born of woman. To deny the Goddess is to deny love."

I considered that for a moment as I took a few drags on my cigarette. I watched her watching me.

"So you're in charge now," I said. "What sort of sacrifices will you demand?"

"None. That's all in the dim past. You were right, Dell. Gods evolve. They live and die and learn on a higher plane. All I require now is tenderness. Every act of love is an offering in my name. Every kind thought is a blessing."

"What sort of punishment will you unleash on Evil?"

"None," she said, "save that which they bring upon themselves. You'll find that Nature has Her own ways of teaching right and wrong. You don't have to trust me or have faith in me. I am One-in-Myself, with or without you. I don't demand anyone's premature death. You all return to my cauldron eventually, and are reborn. Life and death are segments of the spiraling Wheel. The Ascending Helix."

She stood. "I have to go now. You did well."

"I did nothing. I didn't kill either of them."

"You-as Man-were the catalyst. Be grateful you weren't consumed in the reaction."

She turned to go. Something within me nearly cried out. Instead, I tapped the ashes off my cigarette, saying, "That's it? You're just going to walk out?"

She hesitated. Without turning, she said, "In my terrestrial form, you and I were lovers." She glanced back at the bodies. "The position in the celestial sphere is currently vacant."

When I said nothing, she turned around to plant an impetuous kiss on my forehead.

"Look for me when you get back."

A book fell from one of the shelves.

She stood in the doorway for an instant, then strode out, closing the door behind her.

I tossed the cigarette to the floor and ground it out. Her footsteps receded in the distance for a long time, merging slowly into the sound of ocean waves.

Another book dropped from the shelves. Then another. The floor began to tremble. I tossed the Peacemaker onto the rug and walked toward the door.

One entire bookcase tilted away from the far wall, scattering books like falling leaves.

I took a good-bye look at the pair of dead Gods. They still looked more solid than metaphors.

I pulled the door open.

"Ann?" I said.

And fell into darkness.

I was falling. Falling perpetually, no wind whipping past my flesh, no sound whistling in my ears. I was suspended in a dark place, weightless.

Not quite dark, though.

A candle guttered on the altar. I smelled of sweat and other personal foulnesses. Cramped muscles spasmed into knots of aching strain at the slightest attempt to move. I was wet and soiled and worse. My tongue was a swollen puffer fish in my mouth.

"Ann," I barely croaked.

No reply.

Near the candle, a granule of incense popped and flared for an instant. It was the only sound aside from my breathing. I tried to flex my arms.

The Witch's Cradle still held me fast, in addition to the muscle tension from being in the same position for God only knew how long.

It struck me that God was no longer in a position to know anything.

I shuddered. Where was Ann? Where was Bridget? I glanced over to where Isadora had been tied into the Cradle.

The red and white matrix of yarn was intact. Isadora was gone.

Something floated near me. Ann's athame. Slowly I worked at snaking my fingers free of the twine prison. It seemed as if hours passed before they would even bend. The various drugs I'd taken still seemed to be residually active-everything I did appeared magnified in importance.

My right hand worked through the strings to stroke the blade toward its grasp. It floated lazily closer until I could seize it.

I sawed at the yarn that enclosed my arm, then slashed across. The twang of splitting line resounded like harp music. I bent forward with pained care to cut my legs free.

I floated within the remains of the sundered Cradle, massaging stiff muscles, flexing neglected tendons.

My neck ached from the injections. My head swam in zero-G disorientation. I yanked off the Theta Wave Amplifier helmet.

Canfield.

"Canfield!" I shouted hoarsely. That hurt. Using the Witch's Cradle as a ladder, I dragged myself to the airlock and peered through the observation port.

Canfield floated inside, unmoving.

I punched at the controls to cycle the outer hatch shut, pressurized the lock, and unsealed the inner hatch.

I fumbled for the cargo bay lights, switching them on. He looked to be in worse shape than I was. Of course, I hadn't looked in a mirror yet.

I undid his helmet. The stench was nearly as bad as the Land of Never-Change. He looked up with sunken eyes set in an unshaven, worn face.

"Ammo…" he whispered. "Water nozzle."

I dragged him to where he pointed. We both took careful sips from the spigot.

"Where are they?" I asked as soon as my tongue had sponged up enough to make speech possible.

"You tell me," he muttered. "Someone sabotaged the outside controls. Same for the cockpit airlock. I've been out there for over a week. The supplies that feed through the lifeline ran out on the fourth day."

I added it all together and snorted. "Happy New Year," I said, glancing at the hatch to the cockpit. It had been bent inward as if by an explosion and now hung open, the metal twisted and scarred.

I pulled my way over to the altar. The one lone candle that still burned had grown a long tail of wax that followed the path of the breeze from the ventilator. I blew it out. The smoke curled along the white wax stalactite for a few seconds, then ceased.

"I want to know where the women are," I said.

"Well, they never left the ship."

I nodded. It was beginning to sink into my clouded brain. "Let's wash up and get set for reentry. We'll be leaving this payload section in orbit."

"Fine by me," Canfield said. "But what happened to the women?"

"Maybe they never were," I said, and it tasted like stale brine.

The two of us jury-rigged a hatch for the cockpit and cleaned up the interior where Zack had been. Scraping the sulfur off of everything that it had melted onto was a tough job. In a day or two, though, Canfield and I jettisoned the magical chamber, leaving it in orbit. We took the tug back to low earth orbit, detached from it, and dropped back planetside like a graceful brick.

We landed at Meadowlark Interplanetary, the L.A. offshore runway. No jets escorted us.

Things had changed.

But not much.

The first place I checked was Trismegistos. The windows and doors to the shop had been boarded up. There was a weathered sign stating that leasing information could be obtained from Bautista Corporation.

I spent the following weeks searching hotels throughout L.A. Auberge had been written off as a total loss. I figured the next Underground would be a little tougher to find.